When thinking about coaching styles, imagine a coach in any scenario. Does a coach only give orders? Or does a coach ask and wait for the players to reply? None of the choices. Well, a coach chooses to mimic a mentor.

A mentor is someone who acts like a teacher, and tries to impart knowledge and wisdom while trying to keep the morale up of the person they are mentoring. This concept applies to coaching style accurately.

Coaching methods are actually very helpful in organizations that need a morale boost. Why is that so? Let’s talk about it.

A Dying Workplace

What comes to your mind when you think of a workplace that is on the brink of its extinction? Well, a workplace like that will have workers who are not motivated to work at all. So much so that they do not even want work in the first place.

This is followed by a negative attitude toward other employees, and a general dissatisfaction of everything around their workplace. This is definitely bad for every organization. Not just big ones, but even small organizations face this scenario from time to time.

A dying workplace could be the result of a slow economy, a bad year, some trauma that has occurred in the workplace or perhaps their favorite manager just retired. No matter the circumstances or scenarios, a workplace cannot run if the employees do not even want to work. What is the solution, then?

How to Go About it

Well, the simple solution is to apply coaching methods there. Coaching methods are extremely effective at reviving workplaces. They combat unproductivity, and allow workers to feel better about their work. This can result not only in goal setting but a will to reach those goals and targets as well.

This will be followed by personal development of the employees, who are now interested in growing with the company.

Since we’ve talked about how coaching styles can bring back a workplace, let’s actually understand coaching styles and how they work.

How Does the Magic Happen?

To start, coaching styles include several styles of coaching that are created for leaders to lead their teams. It is important to realize here that there is no one recipe that applies to all. Circumstances, people, and the leader are the deciding factors.

There are mainly three coaching styles, but there’s one more that you should know about.

Democratic Coaching

Just like the name suggests, democratic coaching is where the leader chooses to give freedom to their employees. This can be a fresh breath of sigh for employees who want some responsibility and work. It can allow individuals to feel empowered, and they can then give their opinions and provide ideas to the table.

Idea generation can then lead to all sorts of magical things. Like innovation, productivity, efficiency and an all-around positive experience about work.

The result of democratic coaching is simple. Employees will feel empowered, and they will then choose to pay attention and importance to work. They may also cooperate among each other, and contribute to decision-making in better ways.

This approach takes its sweet time, but there are obvious benefits that cannot be ignored. Compared to other coaching styles, yes democratic coaching is slow but that doesn’t mean that it is ineffective.

Authoritarian Coaching

Then, there is authoritarian coaching. Just from the name, you can probably guess that this is where the leader is imposing and is fond of enforcing rules and regulations. When talking about authoritarian coaching, words such as rules, enforcing, and imposing are used all the time. Oh, and also monitoring, that is a necessary element in authoritarian coaching.

Since the coach decides what to do, when to do, and how much to do it gives little to no room to the employees to have a say in work. This coaching style is excellent in organizations with a workforce that is low-skilled.

Since they may not know how to work properly, they require close guidance and monitoring. The reason why leaders prefer this style is because they want quick results, and they want it to be according to their desires.

Holistic Coaching

This coaching style pays attention to the growth of the employees. A leader or a coach who believes in the holistic coaching style is of the opinion that the employees are connected to the organization, which is quite true. Therefore, their growth equals the growth of the organization.

Furthermore, employees are provided a sense and a role in their team. They are given roles that suit their personalities and this leads to better connection to the team. All and all, holistic coaching is designed to give employees the spotlight.

Through this style, they can choose to focus on their limitations and strengthen their plus points. Things and factors that affect work can be erased from the equation while behaviors that make work better can be further enhanced. Like democratic, this coaching style requires time. But it guarantees results, sooner or later.

Vision Coaching

Vision coaching, as the name suggests, is all about giving direction, providing a vision, and explaining the objectives. A coach who follows this style believes that employees need to be motivated. For them to be motivated, their feedback is essential.

Plus, this coaching style works best in organizations that are plagued by work-related stress. Since this can allow employees to revisit the visions and the goals of the organization. By asking for their feedback, it can allow them to open up to the coach.

This style is not recommended for the long-term. It works really well in the short-term and, since it provides fast results, it is popular with coaches. For example, a coach is heading a project that requires fast work and feedback from employees. They can take the help of vision coaching and meet objectives as they go.

Positive Results

All coaching styles have their clear advantages and disadvantages. Some have more cons than pros, but they have their use in circumstances. The most successful coach knows that to run an organization smoothly, transitions are necessary. These transitions are changes in coaching styles.

Takeaways

Ultimately, it is always important to listen to the team and to actually implement what they are saying, provided it is doable and practical. Coaching methods have their own unique characteristics, some take more time, some provide fast results. The coach needs to keep all coaching styles and how they work in mind before coming up with a decision.